Hyderabad: All eyes will be on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu’s son and state minister Lokesh when the Telugu Desam Party’s three-day convention begins Tuesday at Kadapa. Party circles are abuzz with speculations about Lokesh’s possible elevation as “working president” or “executive president” although the TDP hasn’t said anything officially. Party sources told ThePrint that the muhurtham for the elevation announcement could be the finale of Mahanadu, the party’s first annual convention after the TDP-led NDA’s resounding victory in the 2024 Andhra Pradesh assembly polls.
“Both working and executive president titles are under consideration, with inclination more on the first,” said a party insider.
The elevation from national general secretary to working/executive president is viewed in the party as a stepping stone to Lokesh’s eventual rise to the leadership of the TDP.
“With Naidu deputing Lokesh to run most party affairs, he is the de facto working president already. But as Naidu is still very active, the moot question is when he will take the full lead and official control of the party,” said a leader.
Another senior party leader and politburo member had doubts about Lokesh’s elevation as working president being announced at the convention as it “was not formally discussed by the party supremo in the politburo, the party’s highest decision-making forum”.
But a third leader clarified, “Politburo’s endorsement is not mandatory. Lokesh’s step-up is most likely to happen at the Mahanadu.”
Earlier this year, there was a sudden and growing chorus from within the TDP to designate Lokesh as a second deputy chief minister. The demand tapered off, but not before causing some friction with ally Jana Sena Party, whose chief Pawan Kalyan is deputy chief minister in the Naidu-led coalition government. The BJP maintained silence on the matter.
Lokesh met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on 17 May. Accompanied by his wife Brahmani and son Devansh, he also had a dinner with the Prime Minister at the latter’s official residence. The meeting, party sources said, came after Modi teasingly complained to Lokesh during the Amaravati capital project re-inauguration event on 2 May that the Andhra Pradesh minister doesn’t come to meet him.
“So, Lokesh sought an appointment. The meeting was great, marking a significant and memorable moment for him and his family,” a source said.
During the meeting, Modi unveiled the first copy of Yuvagalam, a coffee-table book chronicling Lokesh’s 3,132-km padayatra crisscrossing Andhra before the 2024 Assembly elections.
While the TDP has been projecting the padayatra as a game changer that contributed greatly to the NDA’s spectacular victory and catapulted their young leader into the status of a mass leader, Modi unveiling the first copy of the coffee-table book and presenting it to Lokesh is being seen “as Modi’s appreciation and encouragement” of his leadership abilities.
Expressing gratitude for the Centre’s “continued support towards the state’s progress,” Lokesh also asked for the PM’s guidance on how the state could further contribute to the national vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047, the TDP said in a statement on 17 May.
Lokesh, a second-term minister, holds human resources development; IT, electronics & communication; and real time governance portfolios in his father Chandrababu Naidu’s cabinet. This is Naidu’s fourth term as chief minister.
Lokesh, a member of the legislative council between 2017 and 2023, was elected to the state legislative assembly the first time in 2024. He represents the Mangalagiri constituency, next to Vijayawada and Amaravati. He contested from the same segment in 2019, but was swept away in the wave mounted by Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSRCP.
A Stanford MBA, Lokesh entered politics by joining the TDP before the 2014 polls. He has been general secretary for three terms now i.e. six years and is an ex-officio member of the politburo.
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TDP convection in YSR’s bastion
In its over four-decade history, TDP is holding its annual party convention—popularly known as Mahanadu—for the first time at Kadapa, the YSR family turf from where both Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy and his son Jagan have been elected to Lok Sabha previously.
Both father and son, as opposition leaders and CMs, have represented the nearby Pulivendula assembly constituency which falls under the Kadapa Lok Sabha segment.
Jagan’s party swept there in the 2019 polls, but suffered much damage in the 2024 elections, managing to retain Kadapa Lok Sabha seat, and Pulivendula and Badvel assembly constituencies, but losing the rest five segments to the TDP-BJP.
“Mahanadu in Kadapa is to send out a strong warning to Jagan and co that we have arrived in his district, his town, his street, and are challenging his might,” a TDP leader told ThePrint, evoking a famous dialogue of actor-cum-politician Nandamuri Balakrishna, now a TDP MLA, in a blockbuster movie set in Rayalaseema.
Brahmani, Lokesh’s wife, is Balakrishna’s daughter.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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